Thursday, June 30, 2011

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Stepping off the plane into a surfable geography without a surfboard in tow will cause anyone no small amount of anxiety. In this era of big payouts to the airlines for even standard baggage, anything involving a pointy-long abnormal shape makes surf tourism that much more extravagant. Luckily I have someone on the ground here who can not only tell me exactly what and where we will be surfing, but will satisfy my inner hipster-crud-surfboard mania by supplying me with surfable materials as well. Enter one archeological dig of a father's garage, exit with one single-fin pintail Haut super trimmer. All for the low low cost of friendship and some new soft-racks for the rental car. Coming soon to a California break near you: Grizzly Adams Out of Control.

1/2 of the EBNY Bat Phone, enjoying a moment of perspective at the Crow's Nest, MK NY

The art of clarification, like the art of negotiation, is often simply the art of displacing difficulties. There is, one might say, a kind of untouchable reserve of incomprehensibility in certain things that the calculations of human intelligence are capable neither of removing nor of diminishing, but only of arranging this way or that, sometimes leaving everything in a half-light, at another time illuminating certain points at the expense of others, which are then submerged by a darkness even deeper than before.
-A.A. Cournot

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

You think you are alone, and as the years go by,if the stars are on your side,you may discoverthat you are at the centerof a vast circleof invisible friendswhom you will never get to knowbut who love you.

It were a good one. Surfing an old 60s plank in mushy thigh high surf, the boy playing on the beach fifty yards ashore with friends, friend's dogs and odd bits of flotsam and/or jetsam (not mine to say). Summer is a happy clam sitting on my shoulder whistling small tunes of impenitent insouciance. (Image of classic Curren Surfer poster unrelated in only the most particular ways.) Happy Father's Day, two days on, granted, but no matter what she says, you still deserve the respect.

at Anthology Film Archives, 6/29/11 @ 8PM

Monday, June 13, 2011

The conversation turned the other night to things digital and things internet. In effect, things concerning identity. That feedback whereby you settle on an identity, perhaps without you knowing it, a culmination of time spent being you, asking questions about things in a way you've learned to ask them, and someone collects that identity, those questions, asked by the you you are, which is, perhaps without you knowing it, being disseminated in a collectible way, collected with designs on selling something back to you, perhaps without you knowing it, an identity refined a little, tweaked a little until, in the rough, conglomerative ways it has to be, a perceived conglomerated, collated identity, subtly shifted from what your original simple, fluid queries were, your simple fluid identity starting-point, to something more solid, more tangible. And, because the solid and tangible are easier to grasp than the fluid and malleable, you accept the newish boundaries and you, perhaps without knowing it, buy into it, little by little. Not out of conscious laziness perhaps, but in the end, nevertheless out of laziness. And this is where things start to make sense. Where things start to come together in your life. Where the puzzling nature of your initial queries seem juvenile. Because all of a sudden, or maybe over time, you're being offered things that fit and you are working within molds that fit, and you feel buttressed in your beliefs. And all of a sudden, or maybe over time, you feel like you actually belong, like you've got a reason, or a meaning, that there are people like you. And there is something out there that you feel passionate about and you are ready to stand up for it because being passionate about something is really important because that tells us who we are and people who know who they are are good, successful people in whatever they do. And that is really, really important. And now you are ready to stand up for yourself, to your peers, to people who would attempt to quiet your passion or hurt your identity. Enemies. And you have to look out for enemies.

Saturday, June 11, 2011

I have this rad Axxe wetsuit jacket top thing Bubbie sold me on short notice the night before a trip to California a couple years ago. The thing is as supple and sexy and snug as you'd figure it would be. I mean, I would stick that thing and a pair of trunks on and jump into the Arctic. Unfortunately, after a few months of constant use, the zipper started to not work so great. Yeah, that was a shitcan sentence. But it really did, or didn't, or whatever. Anyhow, the thing would just unzip. Mid paddle. Or mid womp. Or mid whatever. And so I emailed the Axxe guy in California and he had me send it to him to check it out. He turned it around pretty quickly and charged me only half the cost for fixing it. Which I gotta say was a surprise as he'd not mentioned anything about paying for the repairs on something possibly defective in the first place. But apparently the thing was out of the one year warranty, and as I got it on the midnight surf-buddy, our-kids-play-together down low, I didn't have a receipt. And that, buddy, is life. So really, even the offer to pay for 50% and sending it back without any remuneration and all that, was pretty generous. And all I can say is sweet, thanks Eric at Axxe wetsuits.The thing is, I haven't sent him the money.I was carrying around a blank check and two stamps in the book I was reading (a book about Molotov, mind you) and thinking that I'd get it taken care of with an envelope from the office. Then I started to freak out every time I'd walk out of my studio at the end of the day with a blank check falling out of my book. So I started leaving the blank check at home. I don't even know what happened to the stamps. And the other day, three, maybe four months after I received my fixed wetsuit I get an email from the Axxe guy wondering where his moneys is at. So here is my public mea culpa (or whatever that annoying Greek phrase is):DEAR AXXE WETSUIT GUY,I AM SORRY. I AM ON THE CASE. I'LL JUST PAY FOR THE FULL REPAIR COST AT THIS POINT. HOPEFULLY SOON.SINCERELY, TODDY.

Monday, June 6, 2011

I cannot think of a better place to be than in water. I can't. And I haven't been in the water, really been in the water for a long time, in a long time. This is not, as might be assumed, a realization turning directly to sadness. It simply is what it is. I seem to do other things for long stretches of time these days. I make promises I don't keep. I stress out. I sit on my ass. I overreact. I don't pay attention. I worry about things that will inevitably take care of themselves. Did I mention I overreact? There are other things I do. Namely, I have patience. I have patience. I have patience.

Saturday, June 4, 2011

Friday, June 3, 2011

Victor Vauthier. I'm not entirely sure how I got turned on to his blog. But it happened last year sometime and he's been on the Ok Oh blog roll since. Nonsensical kinda sorta model "look" photos. Not very serious. And for whatever reason I check in on his stuff every few days to be refreshed by a pretty face or someone doing something dumb on a rooftop. Then, the other day, I see he got some sort of cover shot for those Desillusion guys, who I just found out about. And I think to myself, "huh."

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